FROM THE DEAN’S DESK
In March we start turning our attention to putting together our academic grand finale. Departments choose their most distinguished majors, honor societies induct new members, we celebrate culminating events such as final concerts, rehearsals are held for the last theatre productions of the season, and other traditional gatherings celebrating the year’s work before we settle down to the serious business of finals and grading in April, which T. S. Eliot was not alone in calling the cruelest month. Along the way we squeeze in a much needed Spring break and announce the newly elected governance committees. Let this be a formal congratulations to all those newly elected to faculty governance committees. I understand that voting was robust—thanks for participating, everyone.
It is little wonder that Cindy Dreisinga had to do some artful editing to get all this activity into a two-page CLAS Happenings poster and Tracy McLenithan is just as artfully stacking my calendar.
Thanks to all those units that contributed to our Spring Summer course poster and especially to those of you who are experimenting with some online options. Now that the counties around Detroit provide as many of our students as the counties surrounding the campus, more of our colleagues are trying some new strategies to serve our students' changing needs.
Here are some of the things going on this month:
Faculty Artist Recital / March 1
Symphonic Wind Ensemble / March 2
Oboe Afternoon / March 5
Pi + FaCe = Ha Ha / March 10
NAfME Collegiate State Conference / March 12
Geography & Sustainable Planning Open House / March 15
CLAS Faculty Research Colloquium / March 17
Teacher Education Forum / March 17
Deadline for AP Award Nominations / March 18
Clarinet Day / March 18
Lessons Learned from Fish Spawning Habitat Restoration in the St Clair-Detr / March 18
Michigan Science Olympiad Region 12 Tournament / March 19
Synoptic Lecture: A. Cox: Data Visualization at The NY Times / March 21
Out of the Box and Beyond the Margins-Connecting with the modern student / March 22
GVSU Chamber Orchetsra / March 22 & 23
Arts at Noon-- Maestro UstadShafaat Khan. / March 23
A Team of Their Own, The All American Girls Professional Baseball League / March 23
Alex Aninos Scholarship Recital / March 25
Jericho Brown / March 28
Piano Recital / March 28
Lessons from Flint: A Conversation with Curt Guyette / March 29
Arts at Noon Series: Gene Knific Trio / March 30
I really appreciate the commitment to our students shown by all of you who signed up for the Out of the Box book selection and contributed to the lively--and still ongoing--discussion on Blackboard. There are still a few spaces in the March 22 and 23 face-to-face OOTB session which you can register for at . Faculty Council works very hard to bring you this opportunity for a whole-of-college forum to address the changing landscape facing our professoriate.
You may have heard that long-time affiliates now have a path for seeking promotion to Senior Affiliate. CLAS has instituted a newsletter tailored to our nonTT faculty and has an Affiliate Advisory Committee. I hope all of these steps will help to identify and address some of the challenges faced by these faculty groups, and demonstrate how much we value these colleagues.
I’ll be holding my Open Office Hourson Tuesday, March 1 from 2:00pm - 4:00pm in 201 LMH by appointment. You can see me other times, of course, but I like to take the show on the road a couple times a year.
Please make sure you've made a calendar note that our Sabbatical Showcase and Spring College meeting take place on April 6. This is always an uplifting event and a great time to spark ideas as you learn about the work of your colleagues—and did I mention good food? I look forward to seeing you there.
Until then, may all your events go well and may you manage to get some sunshine as we March on.
Addressing the Aftershocks of Trauma with Interdisciplinary Understanding
There was a time when we thought some history could be definitive and those who were not fond of dates and conquests called it dry or dusty. All such notions are dispelled in the office of Professor Jason Crouthamel (History Department). To hear about his work is to be convinced that history is a way of knowing that changes not only our understanding of the past, but our sense of who we are now.Professor Crouthamel’s current research investigates the wide and complex effects of trauma suffered in the Great War and its many legacies for not only combatants and their families, but also for whole cultures.
His approach is highly interdisciplinary. For instance, he helped to bring about a 2013 conference in Copenhagen called “After-Shock: Post-Traumatic Cultures Since the Great War” which brought together experts in many fields from Denmark, Nordic countries, all over Europe, the Americas and even two colleagues from Japan who discussed the traumatic effects of the tsunami.
He is also co-editor of two volumes newly under contract with Palgrave Macmillan: Psychological Trauma and the Legacies of the First World War and Traumatic Memories of the Second World War and After.
Jason’s work has propelled him into a vibrant international discussion.“I gave a talk at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin on January 12, 2016. I was on a panel with three other colleagues to discuss ‘Trauma Research: New Directions’ for an interdisciplinary audience of historians, psychologists, sociologists, literary theorists, colleagues in various fields of medicine, and anthropologists from Europe, the US, China and South Korea (an audience of 50 people). The goal of the event was to introduce arguments from our two volumes on theories about how to approach trauma (we argued that the traumatic effects of the world wars have been substantially underestimated, and we offered new approaches for studying the emotional and psychological effects of war on women, children and culture). Further, we outlined our plans for the 2016-2018 conferences in Germany, the UK, Denmark and at GVSU. We were invited to give the talk by Prof. Ute Frevert, the director of the Human Development Research Center (History of Emotions) at the Max Planck Institute.”
As part of the observance of the 100th anniversary of the war, there is interest in a reconsideration of shell shock by both scholars and the general public. While those soldiers are gone, there have been lasting effects in their families. The term Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is now recognized as stigmatizing those living with the long terms psychological effects of war or natural disaster by assigning “disorder” to a phenomena that may more accurately be seen as a normal reactions to trauma.
This matters a great deal when desertion was seen as cowardice, unmanliness, and even degeneracy, punishable by death, but might more accurately be seen as victimization. Even when trauma did not lead to desertion, the sufferers returning home brought to their families psychological stress, economic burden, and sometimes violence.
These effects were not felt only on the individual level. German historians want answer to the fundamental question of why basic democratic rights and freedoms would be willingly surrendered. Jason believes that WWI is the key to our understanding. Germany became a traumatized society in which the atmosphere of violence, the trauma and psychological stress led to economic and political crisis.
Noting the chain reactions from the traumatized soldier to women and children at home scholars track how trauma morphs into domestic violence and alcohol abuse. Jason observes, “Wars don’t end when the shooting ends.”
That a post 911 America with robust arguments about detention of uncharged persons, electronic information gathering, whether we have a duty to refugees, our degree of collective responsibility to veterans, and other topics relevant to democratic rights and freedoms, examining the role of trauma in our own national narratives seems a worthy and relevant undertaking.
Jason also sees how his research interests inform his teaching. He brings archival documents into his teaching and sees that his interest in the history of memory shapes curriculum. He gets students to consider how it is that we construct our memories of the past. How do we look at the flashpoints of politics? In the instance of an exhibit of the Enola Gay, for instance, it becomes controversial how we remember.
As we consider whether war is brutalizing or ennobling, it is important to consider the long-term wounds affecting so many layers of society in so many different contexts. In the case of a consideration of WWII, it is key to look at the damage that was already there from the Great War.
This begs the questions about how cycles can be broken. Jason tells of Dr. Jonathan Shay who works with traumatized soldiers of various conflicts by reading the Iliad as a way to facilitate talking about lost friends.
With the first two books well on their way, Jason looks toward a third volume that would look at race and war. It would examine how the master narrative looks form the perspective of marginalized groups. How do those treated as outsiders view history from their different points of view? This interest in part comes from his experience teaching students about the holocaust and the danger of “othering” people, which polarizes society.
“The biggest danger to society is considering people as outsiders and threats,” Jason notes.
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Allendale, MI 49401
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